Trump

I started writing these screeds shortly after Donald Trump got elected as a way to deal with the physical pain I felt from what had happened. What had happened to me; what had happened to this country. I wasn’t exactly sure what it was (that had happened), but one thing I learned via all that therapy over various relationships that I was trying to understand was – you should pay attention to the physical feelings that your body is sending you. If you feel pain; you should pay attention. Same with joy, or sadness, or sexiness – pay attention.
When the results of the 2016 election were clear my body reacted.
I paid attention. I reacted by writing.

I am getting that kind of feeling again.

I feel in my gut this growing pain and in my mind a sense of apprehension.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I can tell you this. What Doctor Ford said was real.

How do I know?

I’ve heard it before – many times.

Any man who says otherwise has never known a woman. Really known.

For me, it goes back to high school. I can remember the first time. We were “getting serious.” By that I mean we were on the verge of heavy petting, of exploring each others bodies in those erogenous zones, in those places that could stimulate and excite one’s body to sexual reaction. This is intimacy, physical intimacy.
We had to stop because she wanted to tell me something, something terrible in her opinion. A few years before a boy had done something to her. She felt ashamed. She felt guilty. She was fifteen. He was seventeen. I knew him. Or, I should say, I knew of him. He was bigger, stronger. Maybe, he was slightly a bully. I don’t know for sure. What had happened? She wasn’t exactly sure. Did you have sex? I guess so, she said. She cried. I told her it didn’t matter. Are you sure? Yes, I’m sure. She wasn’t. I held her. We haltingly explored our sexuality. But I’m not sure she could really get past that experience. That she could really trust herself, or me, or us.
To have that state of bliss that comes from the most intimate of acts, requires not only trust but confidence in yourself. In those moments you are the most vulnerable, the most powerful, the most raw. You are totally exposed for who you are. Many people can’t handle that. Many are scared. Scared of themselves, of what they might do, of what they might reveal or discover – to others and themselves. They hide from it; they avoid it; they deny it.
Over those dating years I heard what I called “The Confession.” I called it “taking confession.”
It was always the same pattern:
“When I was X; so and so did something. I’m ashamed.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Why would you want me?”
…

Damaged goods. A feeling of being bad, of being violated. That there was something they should have done or said differently and this wouldn’t have happened.
The confessions I heard were always about another boy, never about an older adult pressing themselves upon the person. I do have a close friend whom I walked back to her motel room one night. It was late. The next day she thanked me, and in an off-hand manner said, “I survived an attack from Ted Bundy.”
That had a profound effect on me. I wasn’t sure when I was walking her back exactly why I was doing it. Maybe I would be invited in, maybe not. She was a friend. Maybe it would be more than that. I don’t know what I was thinking, but for whatever reason. I thought I ought to see her to her door. Now? I’m glad I did what I did. I’m glad nothing more happened between us. And my awareness, to always do what I can to make sure a woman feels safe is heightened in my mind.

I don’t know how a single Senator can vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh after they heard the testimony of Dr Ford. If they do, they will have to look a woman in the eye, at some point in their lives, be it their wife, their daughter, a woman who accosts them and says, “I was a victim of sexual assault. I was raped.” They will have to look them in the eye, and see the pain, the humiliation, and they will have to turn away.

I don’t know how they rationalize it. I have seen many men do it. Women too. I don’t know how you do that. I don’t understand. I feel pain, sorrow, hurt, anger.

I saw Jodi “make ‘em squeal” Ernst at the back of the hearing room when Kavanaugh was leaving, waiting to shake his hand and look up to him. How can she do that? What happened to all those bold statements she made about socking it to them and making them squeal?

And Susan Collins? If not the dumbest, certainly the most gullible member of the Senate. What is she going to say when Brett and the gang overturn Roe v Wade? “I didn’t think he would do that.”?
He all but said he would.

The only person with any spine is Heidi Heitkamp. She has said you gotta do what’s right. That it isn’t about politics. If she loses her seat so be it. Donations to her campaign have been flooding in.

Orin Hatch, Chuck Grassley, Tom Tillis, Mike Lee, John Cronin went before the microphones and lied. They will have to face their own private hells.

If Kavanaugh gets confirmed we’ll have our first shot at him being replaced when I’m 98 or 108 or 118.

How much damage this man can do in that interim is incalculable.

He had never tried a case in court.
He was a member of the Starr commission that went after the Clintons. Rod Rosenstein worked with him there. His job on the Starr commission was to leak stuff to the press to embarrass the Clintons, especially Hillary, whom he hates.
He has given speeches where he talks about judicial temperament, and impartiality. By his own assessment, he fails.
90% of his paper trail in the White House we have not gotten to see, nor have the Senators.

As to the FBI not investigation but supplemental review. Can you imagine if Chris Wray, Brett’s classmate from law school gets asked about that?
Question: There were two principal witnesses in this probe. One was Dr. Ford. Did you interview her?
Wray: No.
Question: The other principal was Brett Kavanaugh. Did you interview him?
Wray: No.
Question: Public media has listed and been told that Dr. Ford produced a list of twelve corroborating witnesses. Another woman, Deborah Ramirez, has provided a list of corroborating witnesses to her altercation with Mr. Kavanaugh, and a third woman, Julie Swetnick, has provided names of corroborating witnesses. The list we have is twenty. Did you interview corroborating witness #1?
Wray: No.
Did you interview corroborating witness #2?
Wray: No.
Did you interview corroborating witness #3?
Wray: No.
Did you interview corroborating witness #4?
Wray: No.
Did you interview corroborating witness #5?
Wray: No.
Did you interview corroborating witness #6?
Wray: No.
Did you interview corroborating witness #7?
Wray: No.
Did you interview corroborating witness #8?
Wray: No.
Did you interview corroborating witness #9?
Wray: No.
Did you interview corroborating witness #10?
Wray: No.
Did you interview corroborating witness #11?
Wray: No.
Did you interview corroborating witness #12?
Wray: No.
Did you interview corroborating witness #13?
Wray: No.
Did you interview corroborating witness #14?
Wray: No.
Did you interview corroborating witness #15?
Wray: No.
Did you interview corroborating witness #16?
Wray: No.
Did you interview corroborating witness #17?
Wray: No.
Did you interview corroborating witness #18?
Wray: No.
Did you interview corroborating witness #19?
Wray: No.
Did you interview corroborating witness #20?
Wray: No.
There were others who came forward and tried to contact the FBI with what they thought was meaningful information about Brett Kavanaugh, did you interview any of them?
Wray: No.

I’ve been interviewed for folks wanting clearances. The level of investigation for even a GS-5 wanting a clearance gets more thoroughly investigated than what the FBI did for Kavanaugh.

Lat week we had hired a young man to cut our lawn. When I came home from a trip I discovered the lawn had deep tracks in it. There was even a spot where I could tell he had spun the machine to make a U-turn. When I asked him about it he told me that he realized the lawn was wet and that the machine got stuck several times and he had to “pull it out.”
I asked him, why didn’t he stop?
His answer – He wanted to get the job done.

I’ve been hearing this right wing stuff for over 60 years and I still don’t know what they want. Isn’t that odd? Sixty years of going on and on. Sixty years of grand statements and still I basically have no idea what they want. I know what they don’t want. However, what do they want? What is their vision? The only ones I’ve ever heard fall apart upon the briefest of inspections.
Remember W’s talk about Iraq? “As the Iraqi people stand up; we’ll stand down.”? Remember that? Did the Iraqi people ever stand up? No. So where did that leave us?
I remember one of the historians* talking about Papa Bush and his becoming President. He said that Bush was a man that once he got to be President really had no idea what he wanted to do. I think that is instructive because it illustrates the problem of the person with a good resume. No vision.
* There are three: Doris Kearns Goodwin, John Meacham, and Michael Beschloss.

I’ve heard conservatives, right wingers, whatever you want to call them, or they want to call themselves say things like:
They are for good conservative values. (that’s Dave Brat’s favorite line);
or
They are pro-life. (that’s the Christian conservative line.)
or
They want a balanced budget, and cut social programs. (That’s the Jim Jordan line.)
or
They want to strengthen the military.
or
They want to stop illegal immigration.
or
They want out of the U.N., Korea, NAFTA, NATO, etc.
The point being They want OUT.

But what does any of that mean? Most of it is either reckless or silly. None of it achieves much. Most of it makes us, as a nation, weaker. None of it empowers people. None of it helps citizens of the Untied States. What’s the point?
When I raise issues with any of these ideas I am berated and told I don’t understand. When I ask for details, facts, and data I’m referred to some wacky website or article that is typically easily shown to be just that with one Google search.
The champions of these causes all seem to be out to lunch. They are either quoting some narrow cherry picked set of facts, minor survey, or made up story masquerading as news. They are good at making fun of people, and dismissing ideas. But real sink your teeth into something that would help a situation or a people? Forget it.
If I bring up an idea that essentially is under the category of “a rising tide lifts all boats.” They scream socialism, and follow it up with “that never works” comments. They point to Eastern Europe examples to illustrate their point.
If asked are they opposed to the military or the government building roads and bridges I get silence, or “You don’t understand” and we are off down another rabbit hole.
If I ask should a government help its people? Well, yes of course, but not that way. Whatever way that is.

Reagan started a revolution. Gingrich hopped on it. But what did they bring about? Has any of what they have done improved your life? Or the life of the people of the United States? Or people around the world?
I have to say no. When did the American middle class begin its decline? (or stagnate?) The charts all point to the Reagan years.

The new round of conservatives; people like Ryan, and Jordan and Brat; seem to have no real sense of what they are doing, at least not publicly. One can make the cynical case that they are either knowingly, or not, engorging the rich and maybe themselves. They seem to espouse a “I got mine, you get yours” mentality, but it is hidden behind a thin veil of indignation at people trying to help others (that’s socialism!)

I don’t get it.

The vets of WWII and the people that fought against Germany and Japan in that time have been referred to as the Great Generation. But what caused that? What fueled it?
Well, having a common foe helped. Before that we had years of government attempts to pull the country and the world out of the worst economic depression ever seen. FDR tried all sorts of things to help the country. Was it his efforts that instilled that “can do” spirit? It certainly wasn’t the Republicans. They stood in his way ever step of the way until Hitler came along and they had to let the war effort sweep up the country. Of course, the businessmen (mostly Republican) stood to make a lot of money.
People saw things for what they were. They saw the problems and they worked to make things better. After the war Truman tried to pass universal health care and the Republicans blocked it. In Britain and Canada they went with systems that provided health care to all. The systems were structured differently but that’s what they did. The system we ended up with was tied to corporations as was our retirement. If you didn’t work for the same company for all of your career you were screwed. Even if you did they could screw you. I’ve heard many a story of someone being fired just before they had enough service to get their pension. (Andrew McCabe comes to mind.)
Throughout the sixties there were stories run in the U.S. press about the terrible British health care system. Socialism! However, most people interviewed, who actually used and were dependent on the system didn’t say the things the press was claiming. In the first decade of this century a similar attack was made on the Canadian health care system. Politician here claimed the Canadian system was broken, that there were long lines and delays, and that you couldn’t get services you wanted or needed. I spoke with my Canadian friends and asked them about such things. They seemed generally perplexed. They hadn’t experienced any of the objections that had been raised by conservative politicians in this country about the problem with the Canadian health care system.
The conservatives yelled that it was socialism. Bad. It’s really a system of private companies overseen by the government to make sure people aren’t getting screwed.
Dave Brat’s contention is that Obamacare is broken and that the best thing to do is to let it fall apart and then “they’ll send in people who really know what they are doing to fix it.” Fine. What do we do in the meantime? Hello? Hello? Dave are you there?

The same thing is true of their economics. They are against all sorts of things. They even have some vague notions of what they would like to see happen. We are seeing some of this in action with the Trump administration: tariffs, pulling out of trade deals, getting rid of illegals. None of these actions can be shown to be good for the economy, but they persist!
The administration along with the Republican Congress has passed some of the biggest tax cuts in history. This will greatly increase the debt. The people getting the tax breaks, the super rich, don’t need the break. The corporations we are told will have tons more money to invest in infrastructure, but they already had tons of cash to do it, and they haven’t. So why would giving them more money help? It wouldn’t. But here we are.

Now there’s a poll showing that the Republican base is energized over the Kavanaugh confirmation. The survey was conducted by the Judicial Crisis Network, a right wing organization that has spent millions to push for Kavanaugh’s confirmation and whose donors are unknown but suspected of being large corporations and right wing billionaires.

I realized today that we aren’t even halfway through this presidential term. We have another one hundred and sixty six and a half days to go to the halfway point. Can you believe that?

I have been on the road the last two weekends and writing a screed only got as far as this, which I never posted:

Day 619 Thursday September 27, 2018 962 Days to Go

Day 609 Thursday September 20, 2018 969 Days to Go

The Kavanaugh hearing continues. Dr. Ford to testify. She is one of now four women accusing Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct. Republicans are worried about a witch hunt, and they should know a thing or two about such matters, as should Kavanaugh, who was involved with the Whitewater Starr investigation. Talk about a witch hunt! Talk about sexual misconduct questioning, Kavanaugh should know as he was the one who demanded the most salacious details from Monica Lewinsky.

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(You may notice my clever way of keeping track of how many days up and down I need to go by cutting and pasting the previous post below the current day’s date to make certain I don’t screw it up! Then removing the previous post’s count; clever huh?)

So much has happened since I last posted, and yet nothing has changed. It’s more of the same. The same exhausting confusion and chaos. It turns out that is the way Trump likes things. He likes chaos underneath him. According to Bob Woodward’s book “FEAR” he likes to gives someone “all the chips” and then start taking them away, one by one. Can you imagine being told by Trump that he has total confidence in you and then hear via the grapevine that something or other is going on that contradicts that? Or that he tells you that you are doing a great job and then you learn you’ve already been fired?

Woodward’s book ends at the point where John Dowd, one of Trump’s lawyer’s tells Trump he can no longer represent him because, he, Trump, won’t listen to Dowd and take Dowd’s advice.

This is the same thing that Gary Cohen did. Quit because Trump wouldn’t take his advice.

Cohen and Dowd and others got tired of repeating the same things, the same points over and over and over again.

Take the trade deal with South Korea called KORUS. Trump wants to get out of it. He doesn’t like that we are spending a lot of money to keep troops in South Korea. Why should we he asks? Okay, maybe he doesn’t know. So he’s told. South Korea is one of the strongest democracies in that part of the world. It has one of the largest economies in the world, much bigger than its size suggests. It is a place from which to keep a close eye on North Korea. We have a surveillance station there that can let us know within seven seconds of a North Korean missile launch. It’s actually for our benefit to keep troops there. It’s much cheaper and safer than war.

None of this matters to Trump. The land that the surveillance system is located is crappy; wouldn’t even want to put a golf course on it. The South Koreans should pay for our being there. There’s a trade deficit with them. He wants out. And this goes on and on and on. Every few weeks he brings it up. He tells someone to draft something for him to sign, killing the trade agreement, pulling the troops out, moving the surveillance station to Alaska where we won’t know about a North Korean missile launch until it’s half way to the U.S.

This kind of behavior Woodard outlines in his book on many topics: pulling out of South Korea, building the wall, killing DACA, tariffs, pulling out of NATO, pulling out of Syria, or NAFTA. The same arguments, over the same issues, over and over again.

Meanwhile, Stephen Miller – a racist of the first order – stays around making immigration policy. Peter Navarro and Wilbur Mills are the ones making economic policy. Mills, best known for his shady business dealings with the Bank of Cyprus, and his insider stock trading deals, and Navarro an economist out of step with mainstream economic thought are setting the economic agenda. Facts be damned. Those two advocate for tariffs. So what if they hurt businesses in the U.S. ? Or that they increase the cost of goods for families? Somehow it’s a good thing. You’ll see. Just wait. Facts and evidence to the contrary be damned.

Let’s take tariffs on steel. Okay, most steel is produced outside the United States. Therefore, even if this helps steel plants in the U.S. they can’t make enough steel. We import steel to make things, like cars and dishwasher racks. Well, those folks are going to have to pay more for that steel. That means cars and dishwasher racks are going to cost more. Who is going to pay that increased price? Help me out here, the only persons I see paying for it is the U.S. consumer. This is called Economics 101. This ain’t hard to understand or figure out.

Okay, enough on that. Let’s move on to Devin Nunes. An interesting article came out about him and his family. They had a huge dairy farm in California. Made milk for Blue Bunny Ice Cream, still do. They sold the farm over a decade ago and bought land in Iowa for a dairy farm. It’s in Steve King’s district. Steve King is a big proponent of sending all the illegals back to where they came from. The Nunes family is Republican and back King. This is interesting because they depend on illegal immigrants to do the work on their dairy farm! In fact, every dairy farmer in Iowa depends on illegals. So do the meat packers and other farmers.

So why do these farmers back a representative who is so into getting rid of illegals and not backing someone who would help these people be able to stay and work? It’s a question without an answer.

Also, Devin Nunes claims his roots in the California dairy business but doesn’t mention his family hasn’t been involved in it for over a decade. Likewise the Nunes family in Iowa doesn’t mention Devin. They like all dairy farmers in Iowa are scared to death that ICE will come raid their diary farm and then they ask, “Who’s gonna milk the cows?”

It’s also interesting that some of the farmers talk about their illegal workers like family and like cattle. Such is the nature of prejudice.

Then we get to Brett Kavanaugh. Apparently, there were two hearings: the one that I saw, and the one that my right wing friends saw. In the right wing hearing Brett answered every question and was to be pitied as he nearly broke down from the mean questions as he valiantly fought off spurious attacks on his character. In that hearing Dr. Ford, while credible, was not to be believed. Well, maybe she was attacked, probably was, but not by Brett.

In the hearing I watched, a woman came forward and gave truthful unwavering answers to every question she was asked. She stated what she knew, and what she remembered and didn’t remember. It was heartbreaking, raw, and unequivocal. The woman prosecutor who asked questions for the Republicans was weak as a person asking questions. One of the prosecutors who commented afterwards said she had never seen such a weak performance.

Then came the afternoon session with Brett. He yelled. He cried. He accused. He was disrespectful. He bullied. He lied. He didn’t answer questions. He said he liked beer. He said he worked hard. He said he never blacked out. He said he never assaulted a woman or did anything like that. He claimed this was a hit job by the Clintons and Democrats and the left wing against his name and his family.

He ought to know about hit jobs. That was what he was known for when he worked on the Starr investigation where it was well known he hated the Clintons, especially Hillary. His job on the Starr commission was to leak the most hurtful and salacious details to the press. When he was rising in the ranks of the Republican circles he hung out at a town house with Ann Coulter and Kelly-Ann Conway’s husband and Tucker Carlson. Conway’s husband at the time headed up a group of lawyers that were digging into the Clinton’s past in Arkansas to find anything they could to bring up in court to embarrass the Clintons. Yes, Brett knows about hit jobs.

Then there’s the lying: small lies and big lies. I didn’t realize at the time how many there were; others have gone on about them in great detail. I’ll only mention a few. He said boofing was another term for barfing. It’s not. It means being given an enema with booze. It gets you drunker quicker. Then there’s the “alumnus” reference to a woman throughout his yearbook. He said it means she was a good friend. This despite a poem saying that you could always get a date with this woman, but date didn’t seem to be the implication here. Maybe not intercourse, but groping for sure. Look, I get it. When you are trying to figure out sex and sexuality and all that stuff it’s awkward. At the time Brett was developing, and when I was too, there was this idea, very prevalent among Catholics and Jews and maybe everyone in our society, that there are good girls and bad girls. Girls you marry and girls you do other things with. I never understood that reasoning but I know it was there. Heck, there are songs written about it. John Cougar Mellencamp’s “Life goes on, … behind the Tastee Freeze, I was trying to get my hands between Diane’s knees…” and other much more graphic descriptions: Ten Years After’s “School Girl” orStephen Tyler singing in AeroSmith “Walk this Way” leaves nothing to the imagination.

But “Devil’s Triangle”? I had never heard the term before the hearing. Well, the boys at Georgetown Prep sure knew it. Whether this was a case of idle boasting with no action or whether they really participated in a menage a trois of two boys and one girl is not known. What is known is that Kavanaugh said under oath that it was a drinking game. Maybe, it was in his mind. Maybe while they had a girl on all fours and were entering here from either end they were flipping quarters on her back and drinking. Maybe. But I have also learned that shortly after Kavanaugh’s testimony the entry for “Devil’s Triangle” in Wikipedia was changed to say it was a drinking game. This came from someone with a Congressional IP address. Is this the left wing conspiracy Brett speaks of?

I was also struck by a comment made by a woman who was on the staff of the Judical Committee when Kavanaugh come up for district judge. It took W Bush’s team several years to get that appointment through because there were problems with his record at the time and evidence then, as now, that he hadn’t been truthful under oath. It is now known that a staffer on Orrin Hatch’s staff stole emails from Senator Pat Leahy and showed them to Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh says he had no idea they were stolen. People in the know find that hard to believe. But the comment that got me by this woman was that Kavanaugh had a very thin judicial record, and for someone being appointed for life to the bench that’s a bit of a problem. (Thin as in, never tried a case in court. He was a law clerk.)

There are also the witnesses to Brett’s drinking in high school, college, and on the Starr commission. He was a heavy drinker. He got sloppy drunk. It’s hard for then to imagine that he didn’t pass out at times. He would get belligerent and aggressive when drunk, especially towards women.

Was the incident that Dr. Ford described an occasion where Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge were attempting to force her into a Devil’s Triangle? I think it likely.

Then there’s Kavanaugh’s extreme views on some cases: like Roe v Wade, like Nixon and presidential authority. There is a case to be heard soon by the Supreme Court that could strip away the state protection to go after someone even if they were pardoned by the president. Yeah, that’s right. Trump could pardon someone and the pardon would hold up in State courts as well.

We are only into the Trump presidency for 624 days. We are looking at Brett Kavanaugn being on the Supreme court for 10,950 or 14,650 days. That’s thirty or forty years.

He has displayed a lack of temperament to be a judge. He has displayed, repeatedly, that he would not be impartial in cases involving Democrats, especially the Clintons or their friends. He has written and spoken extensively about curbing women’s rights, and has displayed a lack of knowledge about reproduction and contraception.

He is an extremist, a bully, a drunk, a sexual predator, and a political hack that has done much dirty work. This is not the kind of person we need sitting on any judicial bench.

Yet, this is where we are.

I find it hard to fathom how any Republican Senator who knows a woman be it a wife, daughter or someone they dated could vote for this person.

Sunday is always a good day for reflection. With the news so compacted and so much going on it can only be a brief look back, in most cases. Long gone are the days when Prime Minister Gladstone went to the sea for five or six months to think.

I keep asking myself a basic question, “What’s the point?”

What’s the point of Mitch McConnell jamming legislation or court nominees through?

What’s the point of the Republicans not working with others to try and solve problems?

I do not see McConnell as a principled man. I mean if I ask myself, “What does Mitch McConnell stand for?” I have no idea. Yes, he seems to know how to manipulate the rules of the Senate to get stuff through, or to stop other things, but to what end?

They both seem to do or say whatever to get by, and are in turn manipulated by the likes of the Koch brothers or the Christian right, or big business; all of which have their particular agenda they want to foster. But these agendas are by and large attempts to squeeze some unpopular thing through the government. In two of the cases it’s so “they” can make more money, in the other it’s because “they believe.”

The coming election is being defined on the right as “trust me, you don’t want socialism.”

Let me ask – What do you want?

I think back to the two Roosevelt presidencies. Both were trying to solve problems, both in different ways.

What problems are the current crop of Republicans trying to solve?

Both Roosevelts had a sense of this country and duty toward it for the betterment of the general population.

What sense of duty, honor, whatever do the current crop of Republican leaders have?

I see Mitch enriching himself, but I have no idea what he believes in, other than staying in power, but to what end? For what purpose?

George H. W. Bush was described by one historian as being a nice guy with a good resume, but when he got into the office of the Presidency he really had no idea what he wanted to do.

I don’t see any of the Republicans as having that sense “of the greater good”, of being more than just about themselves.

George Bush, nice guy, was not above running some of the most despicable racist ads I’ve ever seen. When push came to shove, he went with Roger Ailes.

I’m hearing this drumbeat from my friends on the right that “we don’t want socialism. It never works. Trust me.” Then they mention names like Warren, Sanders, and Cortez.

But when you look at what those three are advocating. Warren wants to stop the excesses and theft on Wall Street. Sanders wants affordable health care, as does Cortez. Cortez who also wants to stop spending on military things that the military doesn’t want. All three want to make education affordable and lift the burden of student debt.

Remember when John Boehner was Speaker of the House and he passed legislation that wouldn’t let students renegotiate their debt? Why? Because he couldn’t balance the budget any other way.

The military has put programs in every Congressional district. It’s a spoils system. The problem now is, it’s hard to stop a program when the military doesn’t want it. So we end up building tanks and putting them in the desert.

Warren thinks cheating customers is a thing that shouldn’t be allowed. The Republican scream socialism.

So what are you for?

Are you for the continued funding of military projects the military doesn’t want?

Are you for banks legally being allowed to rip you off?

What about other financial institutions, should they be allowed to cheat you?

Should we continue to not allow the VA, Medicare, Medicaid, and states to not negotiate drug prices directly with drug companies, thus keeping drug prices artificially high?

Should students not be allowed to renegotiate their student debt?

If your answer to any of these is “yes” then you should definitely vote Republican, because that is what they are for. Aside, from stealing as much money as they can for themselves.

Maybe on an upcoming screed I’ll look at upholding the Constitution and the rule of law.

Those are two other things the Republicans seem to not be interested in doing.

Paul Manafort has flipped. He has become a cooperating witness, pleaded guilty to all charges against him (this includes from the previous trial, and the two upcoming trials). He has also surrendered real estate and bank accounts worth $48 million. This says nothing about what he could be charged with by a state, of which there are three that could potentially bring charges: New York, Florida, and Virginia.
One of the properties he gave up was his condo in Trump Tower. Oh irony of ironies.

Sarah Sanders has issued a statement (or was it Rudy?) saying this has nothing to do with the president. To which I say, “Oh yeah?”

There was the fascinating little tidbit floating around a few days ago that Trump’s old lawyer John Dowd told the Mueller team he’d never let Trump testify because Trump was an idiot, or something to that effect.

The guy on the Mueller team who went to court when Manafort pleaded guilty, a fellow by the name of Wiseman, who has been painted by the right as some kind of picky no nothing (or Dem or Jew, god knows) is the same fellow who took down Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, former underboss of the Gabino mafia family, who brought down John Gotti. Yeah, I don’t think Trump and his crowd will have any trouble with that guy.

At any rate, I digress, when the judge asked Mr. Wiseman to summarize the charges against Mr. Mannafort he read an eighteen page summary. That was the summary! Eighteen pages. Can you imagine the summary against “The Donald”?

Apparently Trump’s lawyers have banded together with other people interviewed by the Mueller team. There’s a term for this – I forget what it is, but it is used by mobsters in Mafia trails. It allows them to share information so they can get their stories straight and to keep it all under the umbrella of attorney client privilege. Why would the president need that kind of mob legal strategy when he’s done nothing wrong, is totally innocent and when there is no collusion, and it’s only a witch hunt?
Let’s compare it to Benghazi and Hillary Clinton and let’s throw in “the email scandal.” There were ten investigations into Benghazi. What did they find? Nothing. There are the stolen emails from the Clinton campaign. What did they find? John Podesta’s recipe for meatballs was it? In other words – nothing.
Let’s look at what Bobby three stick has done so far, and I may be off in my count a bit, but here goes:
8 people pleaded guilty, or found guilty;
13 Russians Nationals indicted,
3 Russian companies indicted,
12 Russian GRU officials indicted.

Let’s do some quick addition:

Mueller – 36
Hillary, Benghazi, emails – 0

Yeah, it’s so similar.

Meanwhile there’s a narrative coming from the right that socialism is bad and it failed the last time, and the Dems have socialists, etc. To which I say, “Really?” There are people within the Democratic party that say we should take care of the sick and the poor. Some call themselves Democratic Socialists. It’s a far cry from the kind of thing that has gone on other places with the name socialism attached.

Meanwhile, the challenger to Dave Brat, Abigail Spanberger is running some tough no nonsense ads against Dave’s lying ads asking “What is Spanberger hiding?” And another group is running ads showing that Dave Brat has taken hundred of thousands of dollars from medical insurance companies and big pharma. That he voted for bills that have increased the medical insurance costs in this state, especially for seniors.

Spanberger is ex-CIA. Bratt is ex-priest school. You know the ones that have been mired in a child sex pedophilia scandal for decades. What is Dave Brat hiding?